Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight (2002)

March 15, 2023 11:44 AM

A disgraced Ranger takes command of an old, possibly haunted, ship on an escort mission that encounters deadly peril from a new enemy civilization.

Starring Dylan Neal, Andreas Katsulas, Alex Zahara
Directed by Michael Vejar

Lurker's Guide page
Available at Amazon

Poster Comments:
I watched LotR tonight. By itself, LotR was a fairly entertaining hour and a half of derivative sci fi. But as the pilot for a continuation of the B5 universe, it was terrible. Did JMS really think he could get away with effectively rebooting B5 with an older, nastier big bad species? And the characters were too bland for me. I felt like JMS was trying to create the most vanilla show possible to get something into production. Also, and this is directed at JMS as a writer, after five seasons of B5, Crusade, and a bunch of movies, I'm tired of his characters having something profound to say on cue.

posted by Stuka (4 comments total)

Yeah, the wife and I finished a rewatch of Bab5 and related shows last fall, and as we got in to the extended extended shows it started getting awfully repetitive. I think we watched the TV movies in a big lump at the end, which didn't help.

We have yet to watch Voices In The Dark, that feels a bit too much like everybody speechifying in front of a blue screen for 90 minutes.
posted by Kyol at 5:14 AM on March 16, 2023

I was a huge fan of B5 and felt really disappointed by the writing and acting on this. I've spent the last two decades trying and failing to think of a worse UI for a spaceship targeting system than this movie's, which is to punch enemy ships in VR.

At the time, the network was paying people to advertise LotR by getting custom full-body car wraps. Like, with the show's title across the side of the car and a huge G'Kar head over the driver's side window. I wonder how participants felt about it after seeing the show.
posted by fizzitt at 10:16 AM on March 16, 2023

I wonder how participants felt about it after seeing the show.

I’m sure they were quite happy with the check.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:13 AM on March 19, 2023

As I understand it, this was originally supposed to be the series about David Sheridan, but they got smacked with a bunch a BS and it got rewritten a couple of times. This thing was a hot mess and not in a fun way. G'Kar is always going to have weighty things to say, that is the point of G'Kar after his spiritual awakening and spending five years flitting past the Rim with Leta.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 1:06 PM on March 20, 2023